<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>The Social Network by spacebutterfly</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29385378">The Social Network</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacebutterfly/pseuds/spacebutterfly'>spacebutterfly</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Junjou Romantica</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Fluff, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 07:40:36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,991</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29385378</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacebutterfly/pseuds/spacebutterfly</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Miyagi has always preferred books and the written word to computers and technology. When his colleagues ask him to make a 'Kumabook' account, he decides to go to Shinobu for advice, but as with everything involving Shinobu, it becomes something of an ordeal.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Miyagi Yoh/Takatsuki Shinobu</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Social Network</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Miyagi stood awkwardly in the middle of the apartment, staring down at the screen of his phone, as he had been for the past few minutes. His finger hovered over the ‘Sign Up’ button. This ought not to be that complicated, and in fact it probably wasn’t - but he still felt reluctant.</p><p>He glanced over at Shinobu. Surely he would understand this kind of thing better. “Shinobu, could I get your help with something?”</p><p>The boy in question was curled up in the corner of the couch reading a book. Over the past few months since the two of them had started living together, he’d made himself so comfortable in Miyagi’s home that you’d swear he’d lived there for years. He didn’t even bat an eyelid as he replied to Miyagi’s question. “What?”</p><p>Miyagi took a seat next to him, motioning to his phone sheepishly. “It’s this...social media thing. Can you help me make an account? You use it, right?”</p><p>Shinobu lowered his book to look at Miyagi, his expression quickly travelling from confusion to exasperation, as it often did whenever he was asked a question. “‘It’? There’s more than one.”</p><p>“It’s...er...was it ‘Kumabook?’ Our department wants to set up some kind of group page and they want me to join it, but I’ve never used this kind of thing before…” In fact, apart from sending emails, Miyagi hated the very idea of having any kind of internet presence, and he tried to limit his usage to only the absolute necessity required by his job...and even then he usually ended up roping Kamijou in to help with it.</p><p>Shinobu said nothing for a good few moments, which probably said more about what he thought about this idea than any words could have. Putting his book down, he leaned over to look at Miyagi’s screen. “I feel like you’re actually too bad with technology for a guy in his thirties.”</p><p>“I prefer books to computers! And to be honest I’d rather keep it that way, but these days people actually act surprised when you don’t use these websites…”</p><p>Shinobu, apparently totally uninterested in Miyagi’s woes, held out his hand expectantly. “Just give me your phone.”</p><p>With some reluctance, Miyagi allowed the boy to take his phone, and his control over his internet privacy with it.</p><p>It was indeed uncomplicated. Miyagi’s name, age, location and academic history was reduced to a few lines on a profile. Suddenly the space of almost four decades felt rather small…</p><p>“Now you need a profile photo,” said Shinobu, snapping Miyagi out of his torpor.</p><p>“Huh? Do I need one?”</p><p>Shinobu flicked an exasperated look at him. “Obviously you need one, or how will anyone know it’s actually you? It’ll look weird if you don’t.” Shinobu handed Miyagi back his phone as his eyes turned to his own device. “I’m sending you a friend request, so accept it.” That was an order.</p><p>“I’ve got it, I think,” Miyagi murmured. With a few taps of his finger, he and Shinobu were ‘friends’ and the boy’s profile had filled his screen. And so the contract was sealed…or not.</p><p>He squinted at the profile picture which had appeared in the top corner of the screen. “Is this photo of you? I can hardly see you in it.” Tapping the photo enlarged it, but not by much.</p><p>“It’s from when I was in Australia,” Shinobu replied, deigning not to offer any additional information, as per usual. Miyagi held his phone closer to his face. It was hard to make out, but in the picture Shinobu was stood near the horizon at sunset, looking candidly over his shoulder at the camera. Miyagi wondered who had taken it. Maybe that foreigner…? “Old man, you don’t even have any photos of yourself, do you? I’ll see if I have one,” Shinobu continued, cutting right through Miyagi’s thoughts. Though his expression didn’t change, there was the barest tone of amusement to his voice that Miyagi was just learning how to detect. It usually meant Shinobu was about to do or say something at his expense.</p><p>“You have photos of me of your phone? From when?” It was rare for them to take photos, much less with him in them.</p><p>“Like this one,” said Shinobu, holding up a photo from when they had gone to a Matsuo Basho cafe. The Miyagi in the photo smiled sheepishly, a parfait on the table in front of him which was probably supposed to be the actual focus.</p><p>Yes, he remembered now. Shinobu had taken it on one of his whims, because taking photos of your partner was apparently something that couples were supposed to do, and Miyagi had reluctantly allowed it. “I hate it,” said Miyagi bluntly, practically feeling his skin crawl with awkwardness. “I forgot you took this. And it’s too personal.”</p><p>“Your Kumabook profile is supposed to be personal.”</p><p>“But I’m only using it for work,” said Miyagi. “And I want people at work to take me seriously.”</p><p>Shinobu gave him a look, another loaded one which was usually followed by a snappy comment about how much Miyagi liked to embrace and push over his work colleague instead of doing actual ‘serious’ work, but incredibly, this time he seemed to hold his tongue. Instead, he scrolled his phone nonchalantly.</p><p>“The only other ones I have aren’t really photos you could use,” said Shinobu with the smallest hint of a sneer. Miyagi peered at the boy’s phone suspiciously. It took a moment to register what he was looking at - and then he saw the photo himself splayed out unceremoniously across the couch, offending beer cans dotted around the table and floor.</p><p>“Why do you have a photo of this?!”</p><p>“You looked funny.”</p><p>“That’s not a good reason! Delete it-- is that another one?!?”</p><p>In the end Shinobu assisted Miyagi in taking a new profile photo, which took about half an hour of debate in which Shinobu wasn’t satisfied with any of Miyagi’s stiffly-posed photos in front of the wall (because it was ‘blank and neutral’), and Miyagi wasn’t happy with Shinobu’s insistence that he should at least sit down and smile (never!) and try to look candid. In the end they were able to settle on something in-between, with Miyagi wearing his white shirt and tie and ‘reading’ a book, while a coffee cup stood conspicuously on the table in the foreground. It didn’t exactly look natural, but Miyagi was happy enough with it. As Shinobu had rightly said at some point in the middle of it all, anyone who saw the photo on Kumabook was probably only going to give a damn about it for all of five seconds.</p><p>A little while later, under Shinobu’s heavy but admittedly not entirely unwelcome supervision, Miyagi had managed to ‘friend’ some of his colleagues and join the work group without any issues. There was still more to learn, but he’d leave that for his actual work hours. Just the couple of hours he’d spent on the damned thing that day was more than enough.</p><p>And yet, it was strangle...despite having decidedly closed down the Kumabook application and setting his phone down, part of his brain seemed to be itching to pick his phone back up and reopen it. What was this feeling? Was this why his students were always staring at their phones during lectures instead of paying attention?</p><p>After resisting the urge for a few minutes, he picked up his phone and opened up Kumabook. The icons of the friends he had just added peered out at him from his feed. Miyagi stared at the miniscule blob on the horizon that was Shinobu.</p><p>He still didn’t know as much about Shinobu as he thought that he ought to. Shinobu didn’t offer much information about his comings and goings, be it at university or otherwise. If Miyagi didn’t ask, Shinobu didn’t tell, and if Miyagi asked too much he tended to get annoyed, so the man couldn’t win. It wasn’t exactly causing any major problems; they were comfortable around each other and Miyagi knew that they were closer than they had ever been, but he couldn’t help but be curious about what Shinobu got up to when they weren’t around each other.</p><p>Miyagi glanced over at the boy. He was back to reading his book and not taking any notice of Miyagi at all, though his legs were stretched across Miyagi’s lap as he splayed out on the couch in an even more leisurely way than before.</p><p>The coast was clear, so Miyagi opened Shinobu’s profile and started to scroll.</p><p>And scroll…</p><p>And scroll.</p><p>And...there was hardly anything to see. Shinobu didn’t post any ‘status updates’ or even any photos. The extent of his Kumabook usage seemed to be finding and opting in to extra-curricular lectures (Miyagi was pleased to see that one or two were literature-related) and giving one-line answers to the fellow students who occasionally posted questions on his page -</p><p><em>‘Are you coming to the lecture?’</em><br/>
‘Yeah.’</p><p><em>‘Are you coming to the study group next week?’</em><br/>
‘Nope.’</p><p><em>‘Are you coming to the mixer (just once please...?)’</em><br/>
‘Pass.’</p><p>Apparently Shinobu was just as flippant with his acquaintances as he was with Miyagi. For some reason the man found it extremely irritating, though, there was a tiny little part of his jealous conscience that he didn’t want to acknowledge that felt slightly relieved to know that Shinobu wasn’t giving anyone else all that attention instead of him. But responsible adults didn’t have thoughts like that, of course.</p><p>“You know, they call that ‘profile stalking’,” said Shinobu coolly.</p><p>Miyagi yelped, nearly jumping out of his skin. Shinobu was peering over the rim of his book, head tilted to get a view of his screen. “I-I was just…”</p><p>“There’s nothing on there anyway,” said Shinobu. “I knew it was a bad idea for you to make an account. Don’t turn into some kind of weird stalker.”</p><p>“It’s just this one time!” he spluttered. “And you should respond to your friends in full sentences!”</p><p>“Whatever. And most of them aren’t even my friends.”</p><p>Miyagi bit his tongue as Shinobu returned to his book without a care. Miyagi closed his phone for good for the evening this time, trading it for a book of his own.</p><p>He really wasn’t sure about this social media thing.</p>
<hr/><p>A few days passed without event, and the idea of social media went to the back of Miyagi’s mind, to become just another minor nuisance in his daily life rather than a focus. All was as it should be, and hopefully the whole thing would start falling out of fashion just as quickly as it had come into it.</p><p>So he hoped, until something threw a spanner in the works.</p><p>“Shinobu...can I get your advice on something?” Miyagi sheepishly approached the boy sitting on the couch, phone in hand.</p><p>Shinobu responded without looking up from his phone. “What?”</p><p>“Your sister…” In an instant, Shinobu was alert. “She sent me a friend request on Kumabook...What do I do?!”</p><p>“Huh?!” Shinobu spat, eyes shooting daggers at him. “Reject it, obviously! Why is she trying to contact you? Did she message you?”</p><p>“No, she just sent the request,” said Miyagi timidly. “If I reject it will she know? Won’t she be mad….?”</p><p>“So what?! There’s no reason for you to be friends! Reject it right now!”</p><p>“But...Shinobu...wait…” Miyagi stammered, feeling an eruption coming on as Shinobu rounded on him. “Just wait a second!”</p><p>“Give me your phone! I’ll reject her myself!”</p><p>“Shinobu! I’ll do it myself! Let go of my arm!!”</p><p>In the end, finding himself unable to make a decision without incurring the wrath of either of the Takatsuki siblings, Miyagi elected to do the only reasonable thing - neither accepting nor rejecting, he left Risako’s request in limbo, closed the application, and never opened it ever again, his colleagues be damned.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Junjou Romantica is nearly two decades old (?!) at time of writing, and since the series itself only covers the timespan of a few years for each couple in the 'present day', it's like they all exist in this little bubble where time doesn't pass normally and their flip phones morph into smartphones suddenly...(lol)</p><p>It's hilarious to me that the more time passes the more uncharacteristically old Miyagi seems for his age (or maybe it's my perception?) I don't /actually/ think he would be incapable of using technology or making his own social media account, but I feel like he wouldn't exactly be keen on it.<br/>And Shinobu is the guy berating Miyagi for not knowing how to use social media, meanwhile rarely updating his own and not even updating his own profile picture in 2 years, because he is not that big on social interaction. (They are very similar...)</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>